Ready properties, vetted before they reach you

Yes. Non-GCC nationals can buy freehold in Dubai's designated freehold areas, which cover most of the communities buyers ask for, including Dubai Marina, Downtown Dubai, Palm Jumeirah, Dubai Hills Estate and Jumeirah Village Circle. Outside those areas ownership is leasehold, usually for a term of up to 99 years. GCC nationals can buy anywhere in the emirate. You do not need a UAE residence visa, or to live here at all, in order to own.

Outright. Freehold means the property, and for a villa the land it stands on, is registered in your name at the Dubai Land Department and the title deed is issued in your name. No local sponsor or partner is involved. The sponsorship rule people often remember applied to onshore company ownership, not to buying a home.

Yes, and at the upper end of the market a good share of purchases are structured that way. The Dubai Land Department recognises a defined set of corporate vehicles for freehold ownership, including certain UAE free zone and offshore companies; which vehicles qualify is set by the Land Department and it does change, so the current list matters more than what was true two years ago. The reasons to consider it are succession, joint ownership between family members, confidentiality and how a future sale is executed, and the reasons against it are cost and annual administration. Decide this before you make an offer rather than after: moving a property from personal to corporate ownership later is a transfer, with a transfer's fees.

This is the question overseas owners most often leave unanswered, and the one with the most expensive consequences. Without a will registered here, the succession of UAE assets can fall to be dealt with under local rules rather than under the assumptions you made at home, and the estate can be frozen while it is resolved. Non-Muslim owners have routes to certainty: a will registered through the DIFC Wills Service, which covers Dubai and Ras Al Khaimah assets and gives a clear probate path, and the federal personal status law for non-Muslims. Holding through a corporate vehicle changes the analysis again. We are a brokerage and not a law firm, so we will not tell you which route fits your estate, but we will tell you not to buy without asking a UAE-qualified lawyer the question.

The Dubai Land Department transfer fee is 4% of the purchase price, plus an administrative fee of AED 580. On top of that sits a trustee registration fee of AED 4,000 plus VAT on properties above AED 500,000, and agency commission of 2% plus VAT. If you are borrowing, mortgage registration adds 0.25% of the loan amount plus AED 290. For a cash purchase the total lands a little over 6% of the price. Every listing on this site carries a calculator that works the figure out for that specific property.

Central Bank of the UAE rules cap the loan-to-value. An expatriate buying their first home in Dubai can borrow up to 80% of the price where that price is AED 5 million or below, and up to 70% above it. Off-plan purchases are capped lower. There is no legal minimum salary to buy property, and none at all if you are paying cash. For a mortgage, the income requirement is set by the individual bank rather than by the regulator, and it varies between lenders.

There are two routes. A property valued at AED 2 million or more qualifies the owner for the 10-year Golden Visa. From AED 750,000 there is a shorter renewable property investor visa. Both carry conditions, particularly around mortgaged and off-plan purchases, and the thresholds are set by the authorities and do change. Treat these as the starting point of a conversation rather than a guarantee, and confirm the current position before you buy on that basis alone.

There is no annual property tax in Dubai, and no capital gains tax for individuals holding property in their own name. The costs that recur are service charges, billed per square foot per year by the building or the community, and these vary considerably between developments. We will give you the service charge for a specific property before you make an offer on it, because on some buildings it changes the arithmetic.

Possibly, and it is the part of the arithmetic that most often gets left out. Dubai does not tax the rental income or the gain, but your country of tax residence may do so regardless of where the property sits, and many jurisdictions also require foreign property and foreign accounts to be reported whether or not tax falls due. Holding through a company raises a further set of questions in both jurisdictions. We are not tax advisers and will not pretend otherwise: take advice where you are tax resident before you commit, because the structure is far easier to get right at the outset than to unwind after a title deed exists.

More than most buyers expect, and it is the most common reason a transaction runs late rather than a sign that anything is wrong. Brokerages, conveyancers and the Land Department all operate under the UAE anti-money-laundering regime, so identification and evidence of source of funds are standard on every purchase, and transactions funded in cash or in virtual assets carry additional reporting obligations. Nothing about it is personal or negotiable. The practical answer is to have the documents assembled before you offer rather than after your offer is accepted: bank statements showing the accumulation, the sale contract or dividend record behind a lump sum, and clean lines between the named buyer and the paying account.

No. Viewings can run on video, and the transfer itself can be handled through a power of attorney. A good number of our owners see the property in person for the first time after handover. We will also tell you plainly when a trip is worth making, because for some purchases it is.

For a completed property bought in cash, commonly around a month from signed contract to title deed, most of which is spent waiting for the developer to issue the no-objection certificate. A mortgage adds time for valuation and the final offer. Off-plan works differently: rather than one transfer, you pay across the construction schedule.

A project escrow account. A developer selling off-plan in Dubai has to register the project with the regulator and pay buyer instalments into an escrow account tied to that project, so the money is released against construction progress rather than into the developer's working capital. The sale is registered against your name on the interim register at the Land Department, which is what makes your interest a matter of record before there is a title deed to issue. None of that removes the risks that matter most in practice, which are delay, a specification that quietly changes, and a handover market weaker than the launch market. Those are questions about the developer's record rather than about the paperwork, and they are the ones worth asking us.

It is a Trakheesi permit, issued through the Dubai Land Department. Every property advertised in Dubai is required to carry one, and it ties that advertisement to a real listed property and a licensed broker. You will find a permit number on every listing on this site. A property advertised anywhere without one is worth asking about.

That depends on what you buy and why, and anyone who answers it with a single percentage is selling you something. What we can do is show you the real numbers for a specific property: what comparable units in that building are actually renting for, the service charge, and the full cost of ownership. The yield calculator on each listing is built from our own rental comparables rather than from an assumed rate of return.